


Lean on Me

by karrenia_rune



Category: Defiance (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Inspired by Music, Season 3 Finale, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 20:23:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5389034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alak and Irisa grow closer together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lean on Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fearlessfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearlessfan/gifts).



She found him at the edge of the roped-off area where the arch had stood; she did not know all the history behind the arch in the era prior to the one that they lived in. 

It had been his place, a place where he spent a great deal of his time, with Christie, or alone, broadcasting out to old-world music, that both set him apart from the community and brought it closer together at the same time. It was something that she had always admired about him.

She wondered if his being out here was his way of reconciling the past with the present. Or his parent's role in the Arch's destruction. It was difficult to tell sometimes.

However, she did know his history and what it had meant to him. Even when she had set out to look for him she could not have said why only that with Nolan gone she needed someone to talk to.

Alak stood at the edge of the pile of rubble that had yet to be cleared away with baby Luke in a sling pouch around his torso his gaze seemingly far away, not seeing so much a place as time. She could relate. 

Never having been very good at expressing her own emotions Irisa could only imagine what Alak was going through. "Hey," she said, tapping him on the shoulder.

Alak whirled around with one hand coming up as if to defend himself.

"Take it easy, it's just me," Irisa soothed, as she took several paces forward. 

"Irisa? What?"

Alak dropped his hands to his sides and shook his head, as he'd fallen asleep on his feet.

He sounded startled, but not entirely surprised or angry to having been interrupted.

"You've been out here a long time," she replied. "I just thought that you might be hungry. Or you might need someone to look after Luke or something," she tacked on, wondering if it sounded as lame it did in her head.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Almost 7:30."

Irisa replied, looking down at her chronometer on her wrist. She shuffled her booted feet on the hard-packed ground and looked anywhere but directly at him. She cared for him, and it had been a long time since her relationship with Tommy and looked how that turned out," Irisa muttered under her breath. In the back of her mind, she thought, "Why is it, I'm so terrible with relationships. Why am I pursuing this? And if in answer to her own unspoken question she decided, because I need this. Because I want this, and because I believe that Alak is just one of those people who deserves to be loved.'

"Is that late already? I hadn't noticed. I suppose I should get home and," he trailed off. 

He glanced all around, at the town going on about its business, a reminder that life went on, and he felt an unfelt burden lift a little bit.

"Yeah, how are you doing, seriously?"

He did not answer right away and reached up to rub his forehead, the distinctive Castian slitted pupils narrowing as he concentrated, before adding, "I honestly don't know. First there was my parent's role in the Votan Collective attack and then everything, and the Enchanters, and losing Christie..."

She nodded, taking a few steps forward, "It's all right, I didn't ask that because I wanted a definitive answer, I asked because I care about you, and I want to help.... you and Luke, if you'll let me."

"Irisa," this time when he said her name, his gaze finally focused on her and saw her instead of whatever ghosts from the past were still haunting him.

She had her own ghosts, too. In the back of her mind, she thought of those last desperate moments aboard the Omek ship and her last glimpse of Nolan as he makes a last desperate bid to save Defiance and their world from invasion before he and Doc Ywell had taken the ship to somewhere out in deep space. 

Alake took the time to study her face, its planes, and angles, and those deep-set eyes, the rust-red hair that tumbled about her face; and earnestness with which she approached life, and then finally what she had asked of him.  
Then, as if something had caught him up he stepped forward and took his hands in hers, "Irisa, there's nothing I want more, but I couldn't ask that of you..."

"You're not asking me, I'm asking you," Irisa pointed out.

Alak chuckled," I guess you are at that." Alak smiled ruefully. "You were always direct and to the point. You always had the courage of your convictions. Irisa, you know that was something that I always admired about you."

"Thanks," she replied, blushing. 

Baby Luke, sandwiched between them, uttered a series of gurgles and looked up a them both, his little fingers curling over their much bigger ones. "I think he approves," remarked Alak.

"I think that settles it," Irisa nodded, carefully unfolding her hands from theirs, and then planting a kiss on his lips, tousling Luke's pale hair. He smiled up at them both but had begun to chew on the corner of the fabric of his carry sure sign that he was getting hungry.

"Let's go home," Alak said. "Irisa.."

"Yeah?"

Thanks, I mean it, Lately, I feel that all I've been doing is going through the motions. I' keep on looking but something's always missing  
I keep on looking for something bigger than me, and I love you."  
"I love you too, and as crazy as this sounds, as crazy as our lives are; I want to you where this will take us."

"Ditto," Alak replied. Then feeling a surge of emotions that could not have sorted out even if he had tried,; felt that one word was not adequate enough, a fragment of from an old song came to him, "I'll give you everything you ever ask of me. Because I think we're caught in a storm called love if it makes you believe in us."

"Oh, you," Irisa laughed and they walked back to his house, hand in hand. "I love you too, but let's not get ahead of ourselves."


End file.
